POLL- The WEAKEST LINK: Rolling Stone Magazine's Top 10 Guitarist- ROUND 3

rgambs said:

I haven't heard anything to match that extremely evocative touch from EVH, so if anybody knows of something, drop it in here so I can check it out.  

https://youtu.be/EyfOq6R6HcE

Jimi Hendrix arrived on the London scene like a ton of bricks in 1966, smashing every British blues guitarist to pieces the instant they saw him play. As vocalist Terry Reid tells it, when Hendrix played his first showcase at the Bag O’Nails, arranged by Animals’ bassist Chas Chandler, “there were guitar players weeping. They had to mop the floor up. He was piling it on, solo after solo. I could see everyone’s fillings falling out. When he finished, it was silence. Nobody knew what to do. Everybody was dumbstruck, completely in shock.”

He only exaggerates a little, by all accounts, and when Reid says “everybody,” he means everybody: Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, Jeff Beck, Paul McCartney, The Who, Eric Burdon, John Mayall, and maybe Jimmy Page, though he denies it. Mayall recalls, “the buzz was out before Jimi had even been seen here, so people were anticipating his performance, and he more than lived up to what we were expecting.” In fact, even before this legendary event sent nearly every star classic rock guitarist back to the woodshed, Jimi had arrived unannounced at the Regent Street Polytechnic, and asked to sit in and jam with Cream, where he proceeded to dethrone the reigning British guitar god, Eric Clapton.

Nobody knew who he was, but “in those days anybody could get up with anybody,” Clapton says, “if you were convincing enough that you could play. He got up and blew everyone’s mind.” As Hendrix biographer Charles Cross tells it, “no one had ever asked to jam” with Cream before. “Most would have been too intimidated by their reputation as the best band in Britain.” To hear the story as it’s told in the clip above from the BBC documentary Seven Ages of Rock, no one else would have ever dared to get onstage with Eric Clapton. Clapton, as the famed graffiti in London announced, was God. “It was a very brave person who would do that,” says Jack Bruce.

Actually, it was Chandler who asked the band, and who also tried to prepare Clapton. Jimi got onstage, plugged into Bruce’s bass amp, and played a version of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killin’ Floor.” Everyone was “completely gobsmacked,” Clapton writes in his autobiography. “I remember thinking that here was a force to be reckoned with. It scared me, because he was clearly going to be a huge star, and just as we are finding our own speed, here was the real thing.” Fear, envy, awe… all reasonable emotions when standing next to Jimi Hendrix as he tears through “Killin’ Floor” three times faster than anyone else played it —while doing the splits, lying on the floor, playing with his teeth and behind his head…

“It was amazing,” writes Clapton, “and it was musically great, too, not just pyrotechnics.” There’s no telling how Jimi might have remembered the event had he lived to write his memoirs, but he would have been pretty modest, as was his way. No one else who saw him felt any need to hold back. “It must have been difficult for Eric to handle,” says Bruce, “because [Eric] was ‘God,’” and this unknown person comes along, and burns.” He puts it slightly differently at the top: “Eric was a guitar player. Jimi was some sort of force of nature.

goldrush said:

The only winner here should be Jimi, and the only reason you need should be this story:

Jimi Hendrix arrived on the London scene like a ton of bricks in 1966, smashing every British blues guitarist to pieces the instant they saw him play. As vocalist Terry Reid tells it, when Hendrix played his first showcase at the Bag O’Nails, arranged by Animals’ bassist Chas Chandler, “there were guitar players weeping. They had to mop the floor up. He was piling it on, solo after solo. I could see everyone’s fillings falling out. When he finished, it was silence. Nobody knew what to do. Everybody was dumbstruck, completely in shock.”

He only exaggerates a little, by all accounts, and when Reid says “everybody,” he means everybody: Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, Jeff Beck, Paul McCartney, The Who, Eric Burdon, John Mayall, and maybe Jimmy Page, though he denies it. Mayall recalls, “the buzz was out before Jimi had even been seen here, so people were anticipating his performance, and he more than lived up to what we were expecting.” In fact, even before this legendary event sent nearly every star classic rock guitarist back to the woodshed, Jimi had arrived unannounced at the Regent Street Polytechnic, and asked to sit in and jam with Cream, where he proceeded to dethrone the reigning British guitar god, Eric Clapton.

Nobody knew who he was, but “in those days anybody could get up with anybody,” Clapton says, “if you were convincing enough that you could play. He got up and blew everyone’s mind.” As Hendrix biographer Charles Cross tells it, “no one had ever asked to jam” with Cream before. “Most would have been too intimidated by their reputation as the best band in Britain.” To hear the story as it’s told in the clip above from the BBC documentary Seven Ages of Rock, no one else would have ever dared to get onstage with Eric Clapton. Clapton, as the famed graffiti in London announced, was God. “It was a very brave person who would do that,” says Jack Bruce.

Actually, it was Chandler who asked the band, and who also tried to prepare Clapton. Jimi got onstage, plugged into Bruce’s bass amp, and played a version of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killin’ Floor.” Everyone was “completely gobsmacked,” Clapton writes in his autobiography. “I remember thinking that here was a force to be reckoned with. It scared me, because he was clearly going to be a huge star, and just as we are finding our own speed, here was the real thing.” Fear, envy, awe… all reasonable emotions when standing next to Jimi Hendrix as he tears through “Killin’ Floor” three times faster than anyone else played it —while doing the splits, lying on the floor, playing with his teeth and behind his head…

“It was amazing,” writes Clapton, “and it was musically great, too, not just pyrotechnics.” There’s no telling how Jimi might have remembered the event had he lived to write his memoirs, but he would have been pretty modest, as was his way. No one else who saw him felt any need to hold back. “It must have been difficult for Eric to handle,” says Bruce, “because [Eric] was ‘God,’” and this unknown person comes along, and burns.” He puts it slightly differently at the top: “Eric was a guitar player. Jimi was some sort of force of nature.

mrussel1 said:

I'm actually surprised Beck made it this far.  I know he's a great guitarist, but am I the only one that doesn't love his catalog?

tbergs said:

mrussel1 said:

I'm actually surprised Beck made it this far.  I know he's a great guitarist, but am I the only one that doesn't love his catalog?

Yeah, I agree. I respect the talent, just not a fan of his music.

mrussel1 said:

dankind said:

They had to change the way music was written for guitar because of EVH, fer chrissakes! The guy was a fucking innovative wizard along the lines of Jimi and Les Paul.

Plage just added his take to what everybody else was doing/had done and called it his own. You want to know how great Plage is without Plant, JPJ and Bonzo? OK, I've got a Death Wish 2 soundtrack to sell you.

Page was the second singer in LZ.  His guitar was the perfect compliment to Robert's voice.  All four members were critical, but those riffs are timeless.  

mrussel1 said:

dankind said:

mrussel1 said:

dankind said:

They had to change the way music was written for guitar because of EVH, fer chrissakes! The guy was a fucking innovative wizard along the lines of Jimi and Les Paul.

Plage just added his take to what everybody else was doing/had done and called it his own. You want to know how great Plage is without Plant, JPJ and Bonzo? OK, I've got a Death Wish 2 soundtrack to sell you.

Page was the second singer in LZ.  His guitar was the perfect compliment to Robert's voice.  All four members were critical, but those riffs are timeless.  

And the two other surviving members still actively make new music.

Plage sits around his manse waiting for someone to call him so that he can play/reinterpret already recorded material -- that is, when he's not being a huge ninny of a neighbor or vociferously defending his "legacy" against the likes of Spirit.

So you don't like his retirement plan? 

But the Firm, most of his solo output, his soundtrack work, Coverdale-Page, etc. pretty much squashes that thought.

dankind said:

They had to change the way music was written for guitar because of EVH, fer chrissakes! The guy was a fucking innovative wizard along the lines of Jimi and Les Paul.

Plage just added his take to what everybody else was doing/had done and called it his own. You want to know how great Plage is without Plant, JPJ and Bonzo? OK, I've got a Death Wish 2 soundtrack to sell you.

mrussel1 said:

dankind said:

They had to change the way music was written for guitar because of EVH, fer chrissakes! The guy was a fucking innovative wizard along the lines of Jimi and Les Paul.

Plage just added his take to what everybody else was doing/had done and called it his own. You want to know how great Plage is without Plant, JPJ and Bonzo? OK, I've got a Death Wish 2 soundtrack to sell you.

Page was the second singer in LZ.  His guitar was the perfect compliment to Robert's voice.  All four members were critical, but those riffs are timeless.